jay carney, thank you for joining us. let me begin by asking what does the president want to accomplish tonight? >> judy, tonight he wants to make clear to the american people that his number-one priority is what it has always been since he began running for the office of the presidency back in 2007. that is, the need to grow the economy and rebuild and strengthen the middle class because the middle class has always been the engine of our economic growth. when the middle class does well, when our economy grows from the middle out instead of the top down, america does better. that's really been the focus of his energies on domestic policy since, like i said, the time he began running for this office. it was the focus of so much what he did in his first term. it remains the focus because the recession that was in full bloom when he took office in january of 2009 cost this economy almost nine million jobs. and dug a heublg hole out of which we've been climbing ever since. we've achieved a lot. over six million private sector